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This is redundant, but you can't kill something that isn't tied to the ownership of a company. Just like HAM radio, Linux will be used by enthusiasts who still like using it for a long long time to come. Sure, some perhaps many people will switch to OS X86, many will not.

In the long run I think the Apple move to Intel will help non-windows people ingeneral by creating a more dominant force of alternative operating systems on the Intel platform. We all win out by having more choice and interoperability between operating systems. You have to admit, its all getting better.

Sure people will be liss likely to use Linux on an x86 desktop but that has not taken off despite experts claiming it would every year since 1999. With OSX being a (partial) UNIX core it gives OSS devs a new more user-friendly platform to write open source software on.Also, Mac owners will now be able to install standard x86 Linux distros along side OSX too.

I'll give you a simple example which is typical. The big picture concept is that Apple has traditionally designed the Mac user interface on the basis of real user studies, not merely what a group of engineers think would be best. The result is objectively superior usability - you can measure the improvement for all users, even those who don't realize that they're now working faster. Now to the example:

Mac OS computers have always had a single menu bar. Mac window title bars do not have, and have never had menus in native Mac OS applications. The reason is user testing. Fitt's law states that the time to acquire a target - in this case the menu - is directly proportional to the distance from the mouse pointer to the target, and inversely proportional to the size of the target:

T = k distance/size where k is some per-user constant

This law has been backed up by numerous real user tests.It turns out that there are 8 screen targets that are effectively infinite in size - the top, bottom, right and left sides, and the four corners. Why? Because they can be acquired by simply slamming the mouse in one of these 8 directions without regard for overshooting the target - it simply isn't possible to overshoot these 8 targets.

This means that the time to acquire the menu can be reduced to almost 0 if you put the menu in one of these 8 locations. The 4 corners are impractical - not enough area to present many menus. Since most roman scripts read left to right, top to bottom, this leaves only the top of the screen. The bottom would force the listing of the items in each menu in reverse order since you obviously want the most commonly used menu items first - they're faster to acquire that way.

Now notice how Windows gets this wrong.

1. Window title bars have menus. Some engineers at MS might have thought that this would make them easier to use - after all they're closer that way. But it turns out that menu acquisition time is longer for window menus than for a single screen top menu bar. This is why you do real user tests - users' perceptions of what is or might be faster are often counter-intuitively wrong.

2. The early versions of Windows had a task bar whose buttons did not extend to the bottom of the screen. This defeats the whole purpose of putting a click target on a screen edge - you can no longer acquire the target by simply slamming the mouse down to the bottom. You must slow down and make sure you don't overshoot the button's bottom on the task bar. You've now effectively pessimized click target acquisition - you've put the click target as far as possible from the center of the screen, but made it impossible to acquire by simply pushing the mouse all the way to the bottom.

I can't tell you how many Windows users insist nevertheless that window menus are faster - that's their perception. But when I time them with a stopwatch they're all surprised to learn that they actually acquire the menu faster on a Mac than on Windows.

Mac OS computers are objectively more usable because the Mac UI has always been based on real world user testing, not some engineers' notion of what would work best.

Problems: Did you test the speed with a single open window, or with mulitple open windows for several apps? Did you notice how on a Mac you have to switch apps before you even start the acquisition and did you factor that into your tests? Did you try running multiple apps on multiple displays?

The problem with testing is that you have to test the whole thing, not just the most critical part. That's why video card benchmarks are done almost exclusively with real-world games instead of benchmark tools thes

The Mac concept of the single menu bar at the top of the screen wasn't just about speed, it was also about space. Consider the old Macs and the screens they had. I think the SE had a resolution of 512x384, or something similarly small. On screens of that resolution, giving each window its own menubar takes up a significant proportion of space when you're working with more than one window.

Anyway, having things always at the same physical location on the screen makes it quicker for the user, even ignorin

It is even simpler than that. Hacking aside, Apple is committed to locking down OSX for x86 to Apple-branded hardware. So even after this move, switching from whichever OS you are running now to OSX will entail purchasing Apple hardware. Linux and the BSDs will remain free, and will happily install and run on whatever hardware you have installed in your machine.

Since Apple will release the core OS (Darwin) Open Source, it is trivial to get the core OS to run on standard Intel hardware. So moving the OS X libs etc to Darwin is probably easily done from a real OS X installation

But since the end user will have to do this himself, it will only happen with hackers.

Since Apple will release the core OS (Darwin) Open Source, it is trivial to get the core OS to run o

No, they don't. The "core OS" is much more than just Darwin. Quartz and Aqua are so important to the execution of any major "Mac application" that they too must be considered as part of the core. And obviously, they are not nearly Open Source.

If you didn't need the Graphics and UI stuff, you'd probably be better off running your applications on BSD or Linux, forgetting OS X.

True, but OSX will already run on a PC under pearpc. And now the main thing that made it so slow, the need to emulate a ppc, is no longer necessary. (of course you will have to emulate for the existing apps, but supposedly Rosetta will handle that)

1. The new x86 Macs only run OS X. In this case there is zero change in new adoption and a slow bleed away since Apple will always be behind the tech curve. The PPC chip was their only ace in the hole, they run stock IDE drives, year old video cards, etc. Since they only introduce new hardware twice per year that also means that they will usually be six months to a year behind on the CPU.

UPDATE: After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that." However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

I used to run Mathematica on a 386 with no 387 coprocessor (during the 386 phase when coprocessors were $400 not $100). It worked as long as you were aware that any floating point operation was equal to 0 (i.e. 2+2 = 4 but 2.0 + 2.0 = 0). Since I did mainly symbolic stuff it wasn't a huge issue.

Mind you later there were drivers which came out which let you fake having a coprocessor so you wouldn't even have this limitation (though floating point math was still really really slow).

Nope, x86 OSX relies on plain SSE as a replacement for AltiVec. Unlike what Apple wanted everyone to believe over the last few years, SSE really is just as good as AltiVec. (It iss different, though, so porting vector assembly won't be that simple.)

Ignoring the difficulties of supporting a wide range of random hardware, they're so close to snapping up a huge chunk of the desktop user market who'd switch in a second if their crappy box could run Tiger.

You are ignoring the thing that makes it impossible. Supporting the x86 world is nearly impossible- just ask any Linux distro. Despite years of work on drivers there are still cheap webcams, wireless cards, dvd drives, sound cards, and other peripherals that won't work with Linux because there is no driver. Are you saying that every creator of all the x86 shit (including those that are out of business like Aureal) is going to create new drivers JUST for a new OS that will have a smaller percentage of the market than Linux has today? No. OSX on Dells are a fantasy. The magic of OSX works because the OS knows every piece of hardware it touches . There are only a few thousand MAC possiblities. The arrangement of parts in other x86 boxes can easily reach over a billion combinations. Apple isn't going to mess with that. People won't accept "buy OSX, and there is a small chance it will work!"

"We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac."

And for good reason! Apple's core advantage is that they control the entire experience--hardware and software. Though I run Windows XP 99% of the time, I can readily admit that Microsoft has a big challenge supporting thousands of different hardware configurations--motherboards, chipsets, videocards, peripherals. It costs a lot of money to do all this QA, and poorly designed third-party hardware and software can kill a system.

Apple would be foolish to give up this advantage! And if, while not supported, XP users by Apple brand laptops to run XP on, that won't hurt Apple!

What you'll be getting is a pretty standard PC, only in addition to the off white case there will either be a special chip or a special BIOS extension that is required by OS X to run (sort of like way back in the DOS days, when IBM killed their IBM-DOS by making certain utilities, like the BASIC interpretter, only run properly if they detected an authentic IBM BIOS).

Since it's just a hidden extension, Windows won't have a problem running on "Mac" PC hardware; unless someone reverse engineers Tiger86 to fi

The company making the OS for IBM computers (Microsoft) had a direct interest in seeing to it that "IBM Clones" (as they were called back then) worked seamlessly with MS-DOS and Windows.

Apple owns both. They could, if they had to, continually update their OS to:

1. Detect knock-off ROMS and ignore them.2. Re-flash the ROM periodically... possibly even crippling the "fake" ones.3. Read motherboard serial numbers and phone home.4. Any of a number of other options to render unauthorized clones useless.

This will make the task of reverse engineering the Apple ROM monumentally difficult. And what would a company get for doing so? A chance to bite in to a small piece of a very small pie (the Mac market.)

No chance of such a thing happening unless Macintosh market share suddenly baloons deep into double-digits... and even then, not much of a chance.

So long as Apple makes their margins on hardware, they are not going to let it happen.

Darwin _is_ opensource, but Aqua, the GUI is not. I wouldnt' be surprised if people could boot up Darwin, but then fail to have Aqua start because of the (hypothetical) missing chip. And really, why would anyone want a command line only Darwin? It's easier to run any of the BSDs or Linux.

So, buy the Mac with the chip (or buy the haxored PCI card that emulates it) and get the shiny happy Aqua GUI.

Err, you mean a Mach kernel with a BSD userspace, right? With a nice GUI written predominantly in ObjC? You know what architecture OS X is, don't you? (And which strange but wonderful C derivative is predominantly used on OS X?)

Erratic course changes of OS sellers always make me nervous( have been burned by a decision of Jobs to drop the Next).I'm a regular OS X and linux user. The newest strategicmove of apple only confirms me to invest in my linux boxes.For example, I don't yet see whether we will have to re buyall the commercial software. It is also not clear, how wellApple will do selling hardware from now on.

Why is everyone so quick to pit this as an OS battle? I think the more likely scenerio is that Apple will end up taking market share away from HP and Dell. I know a lot of PC users that have salivated over Powerbooks (please note that laptops are now outselling desktops) but very few who would risk an OS change. If Apple makes a product you can load WinXP on, even if it comes with OSX out of the box, expect to see significant sales of Macs to Windows users.

In spite of the fanboi consensus, Apple hardware is not magical. The hardware itself offers precious little advantage over other commodity components, other than manufacturer-designed integration--just like Dell and HP. About the only non-commodity component in current Macs is the CPU, and we all know that's about to change.

So J. Random Luser isn't going to buy a $1000 Mac/x86 and a $400 Windows Longhorn package, particularly if burning OS X and loading Windows disqualifies you from Apple technical support and service. Which it probably would.

No, the only real advantage of Mac, regardless of processor, is integration between proprietary hardware (even if built up from commodity components) and OS X. So don't expect a swarm of switchers bringing their XP CDs.

This is probably true but I know for a fact that I would buy an Intel Mac because I could put Windows AND my favorite Linux AND Mac all on the same dual-booting machine. That's very apetizing for me seeing as I've never been into multiple-computer setups. Multiple OS single computers sounds great.

Why is everyone so quick to pit this as an OS battle? I think the more likely scenerio is that Apple will end up taking market share away from HP and Dell. I know a lot of PC users that have salivated over Powerbooks (please note that laptops are now outselling desktops) but very few who would risk an OS change. If Apple makes a product you can load WinXP on, even if it comes with OSX out of the box, expect to see significant sales of Macs to Windows users.

Well, I think both will happen. First, since you'll be able to dual-boot, people might dual-boot Mac and Windows now, and since that'll only be possible on a Mac, that means people might leave Dell for Apple.

However, I also think people are leaving Linux for Mac, but that has NOTHING to do with the chipset. It's been happening for a while since Apple switched to OSX. I'm living proof, buying a powerbook I never thought I'd own. But in a way, this will help linux too - I, as an Apple owner, can now put on whatever linux distro I want. Hell, talk about Nirvana - I can *triple* boot Mac, Linux, and Windows. Gives me dirty thoughts just thinking about it.

If there's on linux distro that's probably hurt by this, it's obviously Yellow Dog. Still, great effort all those years, guys.

I agree to an extent. Most open source software is designed to be portable across a wide variety of *nix platforms. Yes, this may mean that more open source developers will use OSX as their native platform. It has the potential to seriously change the landscape for desktop *nix use, which will have an effect on some commercial Linux distros. But it is not going to kill open source development and it isn't going to eliminate Linux as a target platform for open source apps.

Harm? How? Apple makes proprietary systems, composed of proprietary hardware and proprietary software. Now they'll switch from PowerPC to Intel CPUs - this doesn't mean they'll give up on their own hardware, just that they'll switch to a different supplier for one of the parts. So the question is not whether this can kill or harm Linux, but how this would have any effect at all for Linux.

Dvorak's idea is that people would now fork out the money to buy a Mac, then buy a license and install Win

Except that Yellow Dog has already said [lwn.net] that they aren't going to transition to x86, they're sticking to PPC. Yes, it's possible that this divergence will decrease sales to the point that they go out of business, but they seem to think it will increase their presence in the xserve market.

Seems to me that as long as you can build/buy a cheap x86 box (that OS X will not run on), Linux will have almost as large, if not as large, as it has right now. I don't see this hurting Linux substantially, as Mac/OS X will always be more expensive than the homebrew computer on which Linux thrives - at least for the home user/hobbyist. There may be an impact in the workstation sector.

1. It's not free.
2. It's not that other free, either.
3. It won't run on a generic whitebox that you built from Newegg.
4. It probably won't run on those nice 1U rackmount servers you just bought from HP.
5. Loyalty. Loyal Mac users have taken Apple through all sorts of dark ages, but they aren't programmers. OTOH, most open source hackers are loyal Linux or BSD users, who aren't likely to switch.
6. It's not a real Unix. Of the tiny handful of Unix gurus I know who have switched, they have all switched on the desktop, not in the server room. As we all know, Linux's greatest strength is in the latter, and my experience suggests that OS X is simply not ready for enterprise-class server applications.
7. Netinfo. It's even worse than ncsd.
8. Cost. If you expect an Apple box to cost significantly less with a different processor, you're smoking crack.
9. Performance. Anyone who wants serious power will still go with Linux, especially since Apple is inexplicably going from a 64-bit processor with a 128-bit memory bus to a 32-bit clunky piece of junk.

Summary: We might see a blip in the desktop penetration of Linux, and possibly a fiery Clash of the Zealots, but that's about it.

Here's a simpler explanation: the only thing that's changing is a chip buried inside new Macs, and some changes in OS-level code that almost no users will ever see. To the degree that users are or aren't changing from Linux to OS X, what possible difference does it make whether there's a PPC or x86 CPU inside?!?

Curiously, Dvorak really did come up with a scoop this time -- if anything he _ought_ to be gloating, instead of using the news as a new opportunity to be stupid.

BTW, I just had to add. I don't think you have read his original prediction [pcmag.com], the one you claim is just another guess that happened to hit it right. It really is well reasoned and in retrospect seems an obvious conclusion. I mean, why did Steve Jobs KEYNOTE at an Intel conference? Why were Intel execs in the front row at Macworld Expo? How could Steve let Pixar switch to Intel (something I raised eyebrows at, too, knowing the tight reign Steve has on things)?

Let's be fair to this guy; he really had it right. And of course, as flame retardant, I have to state my Mac credentials: I am writing this from my dual-G5 Tiger box... I've never owned an Intel machine. But I'm glad and hopeful for this switch, although a bit worried at the same time.

I don't disagree with your general point but: "6. It's not a real Unix." Neither is Linux. It's certainly Unix-like, but it's a cousin. MacOS X is built with FreeBSD, with some modifications. I suppose you could call it a cousin as well. However, if you mean that MacOS X is untested in a high performance environment like corporate computing, then I'd agree that for the most part is true.

First, let me state that I agree that Mac on Intel won't have a serious impact on Linux. Though I do think it could make a dent in Linux on the desktop (rather than your assesment of a "blip"). On to your points.

1-3: You got me. It isn't free and it won't run (supported) on generic x86 boxes (or even boxes from other large vendors).

4: It won't run on the rack-mounts you got from HP, but it will run on the rack-mounts you buy from Apple. I hear those guys are pretty nice, as well.

5: Loyalty has always kept these two camps intact. Agreed.

6: Define "real" Unix and then tell me why Mac OS X isn't Unix. In my experience, Mac OS X is just as much a flavor of Unix as Linux, Solaris, AIX or any of the BSDs. Sure, it does some things differently, but don't *all* flavors of Unix do some things differently. And in terms of stability, expandability, and playing nice with existing Unix software, it has been pretty good to me. I completely disagree with you.

7: Netinfo isn't great, but it's use is very limited in Panther and later (especially Tiger). In a networked environment, against authentication and directory servers (OS X Server, ActiveDirectory/MS, Kerberos/LDAP, etc.), NetInfo isn't used much at all on local machines. Again, OS X supports open standards and does it well.

8: It isn't free, and the hardware, while likely to come down a tad, IMO, will not be as cheap as commodity x86 boxes. But I do expect their prices to become more competitive with the "big boys" of the Wintel market (Dell, HP, etc.). If you are looking for rock-bottom prices, of course you don't go to a major provider like Dell or HP, do you? Then why would you go to Apple? Other than that, I see no reason they can't compete better with Dell and HP on their own turf.

9: I think you're jumping the gun on this one a bit. This transition is expected to take over two years, yet you are assuming Apple will stay with IA-32 indefinitely based off of their initial Universal Binray Programming Guidelines doc. ISn't that a tad presumptuous? I seriously doubt that by the time Apple get's their pro desktop lines migrated to Intel, they won't support 64 bit processors. We'll see though. Neither of us are mindreaders...

the developer doc ("universal binary guidlines") talks up and down about IA-32 and not a stitch about EM64T/x86-64/amd64. In fact, the ABI section explicitly mentions 32-bit details only (registers, limits on returning values in registers).

Makes one wonder, what kind of game is Apple playing? It does not make much sense to withhold information from developers and say later "actually... it's going to be 64bit too" - but they could be doing that on the scenario that migration starts with notebook-class CPUs (P-M is 32bit only) and towards the end PowerMacs get the 64bit dual-cores or something along these lines.

Goes without saying that a 32bit-only x86 PowerMac would flop when you can buy a 64bit machine from any other vendor and have the Windows version of your image/video processing toolchain run faster/better.

Either way, it will suck for the short term and remains to be seen what the long term will bring.

If anything, Apple moving closer toward commodity hardware may be the undoing of the Mac

Eh? Apple's been "moving closer toward commodity hardware" ever since the first revisions of the original Macintosh. If your definition of "commodity" means "used or made popular by PCs", then you're in for a shocker as today's Macs have:

Exactly what I've been saying recently. Dvorak didn't necessarily guess anything spectacular. There were pretty good odds something like this would eventually happen. Apple went to IBM because Motorola couldn't turn out G5s fast enough. Then IBM ran into trouble with G5 production. Who else was there to turn to? No one else has a viable chance of making PowerPC chips right now. Just because Dvorak happened to put pieces together, along with some wild speculation, doesn't necessarily qualify him to continue to make wild predictions. It just means he got lucky one time.

Which is better, a clock that is right only once a year, or a clock that is right twice every day?
'The latter,' you reply, '"unquestionably.' Very good, now attend.

I have two clocks: one doesn't go at all, and the other loses a minute a day: which would you prefer? 'The losing one,' you answer, 'without a doubt.' Now observe: the one which loses a minute a day has to lose twelve hours, or seven hundred and twenty minutes before it is right again, conse

I think you're confusing Dvorak with
Bob Metcalfe [infoworld.com]. Metcalfe is a respected commentator and accomplished industry pioneer who was wrong once ten years ago. Dvorak is a Linux-hating troll who is wrong most of the time.

Apple will grab a lot of Windows users with this move, but many more Linux users will switch. Linux users will get familiar environment on their platform of choice. Plus, if they don't like OSX as much they can always boot into linux, this time, they can but their favourite x86 distro.I wonder can you install Xp on that machine...

A lot of it depends on what Apple does. Right now, Linux can run on a Mac, so that's not a barrier. Linux will (and I'll go on a limb here) certainly run on the new Intel Macs.

So by "hurt", there's no net change: Linux runs on Macs, and will in the future.

If Apple makes its Macs (say that three times fast) as closed as they are now, then Linux will have nothing to worry about. Linux succeeds, as one developer mentioned, because nothing runs faster than on commodity hardware running with LInux running with Apache. Linux succeeds because of its ability to work very well with open systems. Apple will be a niche player - maybe they'll grow if WINE should run well under OS X with an Intel processor (and I'm hoping so, if for no other reason than I can play Half Life on a Mac finally), but I don't think that Linux will be threatened by a locked hardware base.

If Apple, say 5 years from now, decides that it's going to let the machine hardware become the commodity item and focus on its "special" hardware (iPod, etc) and software (Final Cut Pro, iLife, etc), then Linux will still be unharmed. Even if Apple says "OK, we're still going to sell premium desktop machines at +$300 compared to the competition for quality - but you could always just buy a Dell and pay us $150 for OS 10.7 and we'll be happy, since that still means you'll buy our other software too and you're likely to someday make an official Apple machine your next purchase", Linux will not be "harmed", since Apple can't stop Linux from being made. Linux will proceed along its way.

If by "harmed" you mean market share, then he may have a point. If Apple lets OS X run on standard PC's, then I can see Linux desktop share either becoming stagnent or shifting about.

My personal bet is that if the latter happens (OS X on standard machines), within 10 years we'll see a 50% Windows, 30% OS X, and 15% Linux, 5% other varients in the desktop market - in the server market it may be much as it is now, maybe with OS X and Linux overtaking the bulk of the traditional Unix route.

So, "harm" to Linux? The truth, as you may learn, depends entirely upon a certain point of view. What I've described is just mine. I could be wrong.

This seems more like a case of the exception proving the rule than anything else.

As for the move hurting Linux, maybe. But OSX has been hurting Linux on the desktop for a while as it is. Lots of hackers are switching; they get the power of the CLI when they want it, with no need to fuck around when they want to view video, plug in hardware and have it reliably work, etc.

He said in 12-18 months and that was almost 27 months ago. This is something of a nit, but you can't say "Windows will be less than %50 of market share in the next 5 years" then 20 years later say "I told you so" when it actually happens.

Umm... just because it'll run on x86 doesn't mean it'll run on average PC hardware. Tell me Dvorak isn't this stupid? I really don't think apple is just going to give up their proprietary lock, I believe this move is just to get in on more profit/cheaper hardware. I'm sure they'll still have their own proprietary system in place of the bios, which means all of us on regular x86, not mac x86, still won't be able to use it. And I *REALLY* dont' think you're going to see hundreds of thousands of people running out and buying a mac just because it's "Intel inside".

It's one thing for Dvorak to predict the Apple move to Intel; that's a meat and potatoes hardware business prediction that lots of other (non zealotous) people made as well.

But he doesn't have a freakin' clue about open source development. It's not an either/or proposition. People will continue to write software that can be targeted to OS X and Linux and [insert favorite *NIX OS here].

Yes, it may hurt Linux on the desktop somewhat, if Apple's Intel-based hardware is cheap and/or running OS X on generic hardware isn't a big PITA. But that's no real skin off my potatos as long as it helps hurt M$.

It always amazes me how the Slashdot readers tend to think that Dvorak is the great anti-sage - the guy with all the wrong answers. I can understand not taking what he says as gospel, but his only real sin is the willingness to make guesses.

I appreciate reading his stuff, but I take his predictions with a grain of salt. He's very well informed and quite willing to disseminate his information. He's also usually pretty insightful, even if he isn't generally dead-on.

Personally I do not think this will hurt Linux at all. In fact, I think it could help Linux to have some really well designed Intel boxes to run on - Linux can benefit as much from Apple's design constraints as much as Apple, you could be more sure a Linux distro would work on an Apple box because there was less hardware to test. Also Linux will still run on all sorts of Intel hardware that OS X will not.

I think a really interesting aspect of this Intel move is that now Apple has REALLY positioning itself square against Longhorn. The next release of the OS is due around the Longhorn release, and all the lower end macs like the Mini and iMac should be switched by then as well. So come time for Longhorn release will people buy Longhorn boxes or Apple boxes with a sort of "Longhorn" that's had almost two years of refinement, not to mention what's new in Leopard!

At first I didn't think the Intel switch was a good idea, now I'm kind of neutral. One thing I still find odd though - why Intel of all people? Why not AMD?

...and almost equally important want access to the Intel's compiler for xcode.

Intel's compiler from the start gives a sizable speedup compared to gcc...

I was thinking about that yesterday. I wonder, will APple drop GCC? Or spend time trying to improve it to the level of Intels compiler? The hopefull among us could wish that part of the Apple-Intel deal was asking Intel to provide some improvements to GCC. But that's wishful thinking and it would probably be easier just to switch to xcode.

You have to remember Apple is a business. The question is does it make "business" sense to spend time improving GCC. If the x86 switch is permanent, I would argue no (other than the other replier to this comment's statement on Objective C which would change this to a yes or maybe). The Intel compiler rocks for x86 and works fine, why waste resources on something that isn't core to the business.

Sorry, I simply don't agree. While people may be more inclined to develop for the mac platform when it's using the x86 architecture, let's not forget why people will be more inclined to develop for the mac; because it's easier to do.

People will be able to develop truly cross platform libraries more reliably, on which people will write applications which will work on all platforms. I find it exceedingly unlikely that a developer would choose to develop solely for apple, when for a little extra work they can cover Linux too.

I disagree with his slurs against open-office too. The bi-monthly preview versions of open-office 2.0 are very impressive, not only in terms of functionality but also in the quality of its interface. I'm sure there are arm-fulls of features present in Microsoft Office that are not there in open-office but do I really give a flying fuck?

It's not the total number of features that matters; it's whether the features I want to use are there that really counts. I'd bet that almost all of the Slashdot community have not used any of the new features in Microsoft Word since the release of Office 97. After Office 97 no real value was added to the office suite, so why should I have to upgrade every couple of years?

Microsoft force upgrades because you can't buy Office 97 licenses any more. When your company expands you have to get the brand-spanking-new licenses of office and then because of possibility of incompatibility between the two versions it becomes sensible to harmonize the licenses across your business and this invariably means buying loads of new licenses.

In contrast, Open-office has all the features I want to use and they're organized in an accessible way. I can always get an older copy of open office so the same expansion issues do not apply. I think if most companies could start over with their office suite, most would adopt open-office. What's stopping market penetration by open-office is the hidden cost of converting all the documents to the new format.

Anything that increases the Mac marketshare over windows has the opportunity to boost Linux in the short term. Any time you add people to developing on *NIX or BSD, you end up with code that can be ported back and forth easier then, say, some DirectX or MFC app made for Windows.

So in the short term, you end up with more projects that can be released under Mac & Linux.

In the long term... the key to success probably hinges on adaptation. If Linux distros continue on their own path with mixed up UIs, uneven standards, and so on, then the core audience won't grow as fast as if there's a consensus to make it appealing for newcomers.

I'm not saying 'Just make everything look like Mac', just that a succesful long term strategy probably involves watching and, when appropriate, adopting best practices from the similar OS that has a bigger marketshare.

First off, there's a difference between being right about something that you heard leaks about. Dvorak never came up with unique arguments for an Apple to Intel switch. All he gave were the same list of pros and cons that the Apple community has been arguing about for years. Congrats to him on hearing the rumors and the leaks before a lot of other people, but that doesn't make him a great visionary or insightful interpreter of the industry. His track record isn't very impressive in my opinion.

Second, Apple's switch to Intel really doesn't change all that much unless you're a current Apple developer. Apple's hardware is not going to get significantly cheaper, their OS is not going to run on non-apple machines. There's still going to be just as much proprietary-ness in both their hardware and software as ever. They've been making general strides towards open source with OSX, but I don't think that's going to function any differently now that they're on x86.

A mac will still be a mac, and a PC will still be a PC, they'll just happen to have the same processor inside. Like they have the same hard drives and ram and lots of other stuff now. If Apple was opening up OSX to any old dell or emachines box, then maybe there'd be significant migration from Linux. If Apple was entirely open sourcing the whole of OSX, then maybe there'd be significant migration. But not because they're changing processors in their otherwise the same computers.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence about Linux/Unix users switching to Macs in droves [wired.com]. If that's true, I don't see how Apple switching to Intel based system will stop that switch. It will almost certainly make the switch even easier to make. Let's face it, with a Mac you get Unix AND a great GUI.

Am I the only one out there who doesn't really care for Apple's "great GUI"? I currently have the latest greatest dual proc. G5 with 4 GB of memory running Jaguar on my desktop sitting next to my vanilla Athlon running FC3. Guess which one gets used 99% of the time? I am a hard core Linux user from the start who cares most about three things: the terminal (gnome-terminal with tabs), the editor (vim/gvim) and whatever handles my personal key and mouse bindings (which is why I hate Metacity and stick with sawfish). I don't care if I have 64 bit rendered window borders with buttons that look stunningly like cough drops. Honestly, the only software I run regularly on the G5 is the Palm software which syncs up my Zire. It's broken in FC3 right now.

I got the G5 with grant money (I'm a meteorology professor/researcher) because I am interested in creating movies of renderings of my model data, and got the Final Cut Pro / Motion / DVD burner suite and it works fine. I also wanted to see how the IBM processor stacked up to the Athlon/Intel for large floating point model runs (now that seems to be less of an issue). But you can bet if those movie making apps ran under Linux, I wouldn't have bothered with the Mac.

Unless something much, much better comes along, I will probably run Linux as my primary "Desktop" and research OS until I retire in twenty-odd years.

Do you own a car? You do realize that there are various patents and copyrights covering your car?

Do you own a microwave oven? Once again, there are patents and copyright limitations covering it too.

Do you own a TV? Same thing.

Why is it that when it comes to software you demand complete freedom, but when it comes to everything else, such freedom is irrelevant? What's so special about software that requires it to be "free" (as in speech and beer)?

Because with a car you're 95% free to do with it whatever you want. You can put other wheels on it, a different engine, 30" subwoofer in the back etc. You can look under the hood and see how it works, tweak it, fix it or break it. And you don't violate any patent/copyright law.
With closed software however, you can't look under the hood (although it's legal under EU patent system to reverse-engineer) or modify as much as you want, simply because it isn't quite possible.

Do you realize that if the "Car" patent hadn't been slapped down as harmful to consummers in the 1900's that there would be only one manufacturer of cars, and that the Ford Assembly line would never have been invented?

Same for the TV! Look it up sometime when you are checking out the "car" patent.

Great analogy, for the opposite argument.

What's special about software is that is an attempt to get patents on the Concepts, otherwise a copyright would serve the purpose.

Do you own a car? You do realize that there are various patents and copyrights covering your car?
Do you own a microwave oven? Once again, there are patents and copyright limitations covering it too.
Do you own a TV? Same thing.
Why is it that when it comes to software you demand complete freedom, but when it comes to everything else, such freedom is irrelevant?

Because software isn't a car. Software isn't a TV. Software isn't a microwave.

Software already has protection via copyright and trade secrets. Thanks to copyright, and the very nature of source code vs machine code, we can't see how closed software works. We can't modify it. We can't improve it. We can't learn from it. It's a black box, never to be opened. And thanks to patents we can't even make another piece of software that WORKS like the original.

My car might have patents but nobody owns the copyright to my car. My television might use a radical new form of electron gun but nobody will sue me for building my own TV. With patents I'm supposed to be able to see how the invention works; that's the balance that patents are supposed to provide. Where's that balance with software patents?

Books have copyrights but I don't see anybody claiming a patent for murder mysteries. Music can be copyrighted but nobody owns a patent on Rock Ballads. With copyright the original is supposed to pass into the public domain for the good of all humanity. With software copyright, where is the balance? The knowledge is still locked up in the source code which we NEVER SEE.

The software manufacturers are simply greedy; they want copyright protection AND patent protection AND trade secrets. They want copyright on the machine code and trade secrets for the source, so the public NEVER receives the intended balance. They want patents on the algorithms so nobody can compete, but if you can't see the code then how can you know when you infringe? Once again, where is the balance?

I'd like to see a simple rule applied here; software can have patent protection, or copyright protection, but not both. If you choose patents then you must publish your source code and in 20 years time it's in the public domain. If you choose copyright then you can keep the source code a secret but you can't enforce patents. That would go some way towards restoring the balance.

Dvorak's argument seems to boil down to people being able to dual-boot MacOS with Windows on their Macs in future. I don't see that as a significant factor, and certainly not on the enterprise server or desktop (which never dual boot, with the possible exception of sales engineers' laptops and the like). I don't see that Apple merely changing CPU makes the Mac any more or less easy for developers to target. It's not like there's much assembly code being written any more.

That said, the Mac is acting - and will continue to act - as a retarding factor to Linux desktop adoption. Essentially, if you don't like tweaking, MacOS X is "desktop Linux" available today, and with Microsoft Office, QuickTime and all the rest. In this respect, RH got it right by shifting focus from the hobbyist/home user desktop. Me, I enjoy the tweaking, and consider it a fair price to pay to avoid being locked into anyone's proprietary software, whether Microsoft or Apple. Each to their own though; I gather some people actually use computers to do their real job, strange as that might seem!

Of course, as MacOS X is more-or-less a UNIX, it can be argued that any retardation it causes Linux is balanced by the invigorating effect it gives to UNIX-like OSs like Linux.

I am a developer. I use Linux, OS X, and Windows for development all the time. However, I run Linux as my primary OS because it's light(er)-weight and easier to secure than the alternatives.

Windows is insecure, plain and simple. You have no source code and there is all sorts of legacy code and other crap in there that you can't control. Except for the stupid licensing/activation it is a fine operating environment but I just can't trust it. That plus the lack of a nice scripting environment that Unix-like systems provide make it unusable as a primary OS.

OS X is slow, bloated, and somewhat insecure. The slow and bloated parts are just a problem with the design. BSD on Mach is wasteful and they do way too much object-oriented stuff that is inefficient (not that OO is bad, just their design which has Smalltalk-like issues). This goes way back the design of NextStep which had similar problems. As for the insecurity, it's the same problem I have with Windows. I don't have the source code to most of the system and there are is lot of legacy and convenience stuff in there that will eventually lead to insecurities just like on Windows (just wait and see when OS X is more pervasive). Although I trust it more than Windows, I can't live with its performance and that nagging insecurity feeling won't go away.

So I'm left with Linux. BSD is not an option because I need VMware to run Windows for development purposes. Linux can be a pain in the ass to work with but it is getting better and at least I have full control. For me this is mostly about security and performance. I know what's going on and can control all the details. This can be a huge pain and I try to mitigate the problem by using the proper tools but at least it lets me sleep at night. Also with Linux I can control what I run. I don't need an Aqua-like eye-candy system to do development on. I can chose to run GNOME, KDE, or something lightweight. I like that control because it keeps my system performance up in the places I need it (eg. I need to run VMware fast, I need to compile fast, etc.).

OS X is slow, bloated, and somewhat insecure. The slow and bloated parts are just a problem with the design. BSD on Mach is wasteful and they do way too much object-oriented stuff that is inefficient (not that OO is bad, just their design which has Smalltalk-like issues).

Err, you say you're a developer, but then you say things like this. The Mach/BSD issue is not the bottleneck. That Anandtech article was painfully innacurate and uninformed.

This is the kind of stuff that really makes me wonder how many people just don't get it.

Imagine if a car company came out with a nice new sedan. This sedan is VERY nice. How much would that sedan hurt the truck sales of a competing company? If the sedan is VERY nice, then it is sure to have an impact on auto sales in general, but since it is not a direct replacement for a truck, its impact on truck sales is going to be limited.

OSX is NOT a direct replacement for Linux. The reason is that it will not run on STANDARD HARDWARE. If Apple were to actually create a version that ran on generic PC's then someplace in hell some imps would be making a snowman. Apple will not create a version for standard PC's because Apple is Apple. If you know the history of the company then you know what I mean. If you don't know the history then explaining it will take too much time. There are many books that have been written about Apple and its history. If you want to know the details, read a couple of them.

The value of Linux is that it is FREE, and yes I mean as in BEER as well as in speech, and you don't have to buy funky proprietary hardware to run it. This is why it is found on servers all over the place, as well as on more and more desktops every day. OS-X is expensive, both in terms of the OS itself, and in terms of the proprietary hardware you have to shell out money for in order to run it. Proprietary solutions, even if they are superior, always have a very hard time competing with commodity solutions. This has been Apple's problem for the better part of 20 years now. It wasn't Microsoft as a software company that sank the Mac, it was the PC hardware industry whose products became ubiquitous. Microsoft simply rode the wave.

As for the development argument, how many Open Source projects are there out there which target the mac exclusively? Answer, very few. How many in fact support the Mac as an afterthought, if at all, because of all the funky things that Apple has done which make porting to it more difficult than porting to Solaris or some other mainstream version of Unix?

I really do get the idea sometimes that people like Dvorak are in the business of making proclamations like this just to get attention. If they're right even some of the time then they'll be able to create an audience and a paycheck doing it.

I have an alternate prediction for everyone. My prediction is this: The Open Source projects that benefit the Mac will usually benefit Linux and vice versa. There will be a few that are Mac-only, or Linux-only, but only in order to replicate some desired functionality that is already present on the other system. Most of the Open Source development that is done for OS-X will be in porting stuff from Linux to it, and in the creation of new projects that can be developed on both platforms simultaneously.

We already see this with FreeBSD where everything from Apache to zsh is up and running because the work of porting between FreeBSD and Linux is usually trivial and writing conditional code to support both platforms is even easier. There are a few packages that don't exist on both platforms, or which exist on one platform as a kludge, but these are the rare exceptions. Linux and OS-X don't have as much in common as Linux and FreeBSD do, but they are still similar enough that supporting both is not a herculean task the way it is with Unix and Windows. Development on OS-X will therefore be a net gain for Linux since most of the stuff that is developed for OS-X will be developed for Linux at the same time and vice versa.

Besides, there is no guarantee that Apple's move to Intel is going to increase sales. It may result in faster computers, but it takes a lot more than that to convince people to buy your funky hardware so they can run your funky os.

Linux has one strike against it in that it is not windows. It is able to overcome that because it is FREE and runs on standard hardware. Choosing Linux is not a commitment to Linux, it c

Developers write to the OS and API provided by the OS, not to the CPU.

Why will it make any difference at all if developers are telling their compilers to compile for x86 or PPC? The application-level code still has to be dealt with, and the CPU isn't even visible to most developers writing most applications, particularly the critical-mass open source stuff that the "masses" would have to adopt to make this turnabout happen.

I'm not happy with the Apple decision, but for reasons other than these.

The key here is that Apple and its BSD-UNIX kernel running on the Intel platform should outperform Windows by an extreme

OSX uses the XNU kernel, a development of the Mach kernel, with the BSD-UNIX personality hardcoded in. It doesn't have the performance characteristics of the BSD kernels at all. On top of this sits Aqua, as eye-candy intensive a GUI as any out there, which places heavy demands on chip performance. Switching to an inferior CPU isn't going to make it faster, even with the higher clock speeds in performance terms the switch is likely to be a wash.

OSX isn't going to outperform Windows on the same hardware by any stretch of the imagination. The switch may well enable Apple to improve their price/performance ratio, if as is rumoured this was prompted by difficulties getting the next generation of PPC chips at reasonable prices in reasonable quantitites, but expecting OSX to outperform any other system on the same hardware is pretty ludicrous. Unless he means to compare OSX today with Longtooth in 5 years or whenever it's finally released.

The underlying CPU means almost nothing to the vast majority of application developers. The endianness might make it easier to port Windows and Linux/x86 applications to the Mac, but I can't see OSS developers moving en masse to OS X for that reason. And if OS X/x86 ran on standard PC hardware, it could easily take a chunk out of open source Windows apps, but that's just not going to happen--See here [com.com], the last paragraph: Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said.

(Incidentally, the use of the word allow indicates to me that perhaps the hardware will be practically identical and artificial restrictions may be put in place to ensure the hardware is a genuine Apple box... then someone will hack OS X to run on generic PCs... and Apple will bludgeon them with the DMCA... I can hardly wait.)

He predicted the shift, yes, but it didn't happen for the reasons he cites. Dvorak was overall ignorant to the inner workings of the Apple-IBM relationship that prompted this decision over the last year. Dvorak's reasoning is that he believes that Intel is a titan, and that monopolies are good, and that the market should reward them. Steve Jobs switched because he's playing hardball with is suppliers.

I think that this move will be more likely to help Linux than to hurt it. For one thing, this move makes x86-compiled Linux binaries more compatible with the x86-compiled OS X - therefore puts more Linux apps in reach of "casual" open source dabblers who are Mac-heads. Ultimately, this will more closely tie Linux with Mac Users, and vice versa. (not the non-technical subset of Mac users, but the hobbyist/power-user set). I *do* believe that cultivating WiNE for OS X, and other Linux x86 apps, are secretly part of this strategy. Partially to backfill the applications that the platform WILL lose, when it goes x86 - because face it, Adobe and Microsoft may be buying into this bullshit, but the reality is, most other ISV's are not going to recompile or put in the effort to port to x86. Particularly a lot of the shareware/freeware games and utilities (you may as well delete them now, and get used to their absence, they're gone).

I don't think that a whole lot of Linux users are switching to Apple because of the CPU. They're doing it because Apple supports Unix tools they're familliar with, in a much more powerful sensible and workable User Environment (OS X compared to Windows+SFU). This hardware change won't impact that AT ALL, unless there's a real price/performance difference betweem PPC Macs and Intel Macs (and I seriously doubt that, if anything, there will be a penalty in certain areas where the PPC Macs currently exel, like CD ripping, and MPEG encoding).

Above all, I doubt VERY MUCH that the PPC->Intel switch is intended to have an impact on the street-price of Apple systems. Jobs says this is purely about MHz ramping, and heat/power/performance capabilities. He's not going to put a celeron in the Mac Mini, and suddenly drop the price $200.

Linux-heads who are in love with cheap hardware, will stick with Wintel-compatible hardware, and run Linux.

And NO ONE, will run Linux on Apple-intel hardware. Because Apple-intel hardware will cost more than other brands of intel systems, and the features that make it WORTH more (nifty volume controls, sleep/wake/variable power/cooling management, color management etc) are tied into Mac OS X, and won't likely work as well with Unix.

The LOSERS here are Apple Customers who have legacy systems. Over the past 5 years or so, Apple has readily demonstrated their utter contempt for people not running the latest and greatest Apple hardware, by cutting off support for older hardware. Us PPC owners are going to be shit on a lot over the next few years.

Where the hell did you guys get that info?I was talking about that last night on IRC, and afaik x86 is limited to 32 bit architecture!Why the heck would Apple, who's G5 is 64 bits switch to a 32 bit architecture?Most likely they're going to use another Intel chip, like Itanium2 or something to come that runs 64 bits, not 32!

It doesn't make sense for them to DOWNGRADE their hardware. They'd be signing their death as a competitor for high end applications, which is what they are for most professional graphics and video applications.

Seriously people, think about it! Amd is 64 bits now, apart from the sempron line, and that's destined to disappear sometime in the future.

So yes, in my opinion Dvorak is smoking crack, because it's not OSX for x86! It's OSX for a non-x86, 64 bit Intel chip! Itanium2 might be it, or it might be something else, I haven't kept up with Intel's 64 bit attempts.

Also switching from the 64 bit PowerPC to a 64 bit Intel chip would seem more coding than switching to 32 bit, as they have OSX running on their older G4s and even G3s.

Remember that end of article about migrating to Intel? "It's going to be a lot of hard work"? It wouldn't be if they were switching to x86, Darwin runs fine on x86...

Ignoring, for a moment, Dvorak's predictions for Linux's demise, he does have a very valid point that Linux/Gnome/KDE advocates seem to be missing:

The Linux world suffers from a lack of modern intuitive menus and commands. Anyone who has played with the Open Office Programs such as the Powerpoint clone called "Impress" soon finds themselves lost in a jungle of menu structures and naming conventions.

The problem isn't isolated to Impress; KDE and Gome applications tend either to mimic Windows equivalents, or have UI's with far too many menus, toolbars, tabs, sidebars, bells, whistles, and fruit baskets. GUI concepts change dramatically between releases (Gnome's file browser, anyone?), and there seems to be little or no documentation for many applications.

Unix-oriented developers tend to be both intelligent and arrogant; the assumption is that if a program is good enough for a geek, it's good enough for everyone else, too.

That isn't to say that Windows applications are any more consistent; even Excel and Word have annoying differences in menus and options, and programs these days are a web of menus and options. To change a program's behavior (on Windows, KDE, or Gnome), do I look for "Preferences" or "Options" or "Settings" or "Configure" in the menus? Something so simple, and yet so inconsistent.

Being "right" doesn't always (or even usually) mean you'll succeed, and just because FOSS developers think they have the moral high ground doesn't mean users are going to flock to their door. KDE and Gnome need to give people a reason to use them, by providing more intuitive interfaces and a better understanding of user's needs.

Calm down. Dvorak, as a trade rag columnist, by definition has to pull at least one prediction a week out of his ass. Like any number of other trade columnists, he frequently targets Apple because it makes good copy. With as many prognostications as he's made, he's going to get it right about as often as the next person.

Having taken the time to RTFA, it's obvious to me he's making it up as he goes. Linux PPC work will will slack off as it's platform moves to legacy status, but otherwise a MacIntelosh won't make a bit of difference to Linux. Addressing his comments:

Run Windows On A Mac: I seriously doubt it, unless the only thing preventing Windows from running on - say - a G5 is the CPU. Apple isn't going to submit a Mac for Windows certification, isn't going to sign one of those #@$!% OEM deals with MS, and the only effort at making a port work at Redmond will be on someone's lunch hour.Obviously harmful to the computer makers in general and to Microsoft: Assuming a Macx86 won't run Windows, the current market inertia will continue. A Mac will remain a nicely made boutique system. For developers, it ain't the CPU, it's the API.x86 Competition: The rest of his piece assumes that there's a significant number of x86 developers who work with desktop Linux applications because it's the only non-MS game in town, and they'd love to get out from under the GPL if only they could. This is the fantasy of a (arguably) paid MS shill. So the people working on Open Office, Abi Word, GNU Cash, et al are going to drop everything and run to Apple's API because of an ENDIAN change? At least now we have solid proof Dvorak hasn't written a line of code since he last ran BASIC on a TRS-80.

We all know (or should know by now) that Dvorak hates linux, and given any chance, he'll attempt to spread uncertainty and doubt about the future of linux and open-source and free software.

First, he spends about 2/3rds of the article trash-talking open source applications. They're not intuitive, he claims, and thus haven't been accepted much. Somehow macos is going to kill them (even though he claims they aren't accepted?)

But in the last third (last 4 paragraphs) is where he actually makes some arguements, instead of just trashing open source applications.

First, he makes two claims obviously false claims. First, source apps haven't targeted macos, but suddenly will. Simply wrong. Lots of open source apps have been ported to os-x. But even more rediculous is the notion that macos on intel support will be to the exclusion of linux support. Utterly stupid. There's a very strong established trend for multi-platform support on almost all major open source apps. Suddenly everyone's going to abandon gnu autoconfig, automake and libtool? Yeah, right!

Then in the 3rd to last paragraph, he talks about the GPL's "rigid license requirements". Ok, compared to BSD or public domain, maybe? But compared to Apple's macos? Or any other proprietary software. The GPL's source code release requirements are only "rigid" to one group of people... the proprietary software vendors, who would really, really like to appropriate all that free code, if only they themselves wouldn't have to play by the same rules.

But Dvorak claims everyone who's believed the GPL was a good idea in the past is suddenly going to see profit opportunity and abandon the GPL. Doesn't seem too likely. This is an old, well worn fear/unknown argument that seemed believable years ago when Red Hat, Caldera and others companies started selling, going public, etc. Hackers worldwide weren't suddenly overcome by greed then, seems unlikely now.

But the fear is really laid on thick in the last two paragraphs. Apple's going to benefit (probably), so somebody is necessarily going to suffer. Suddenly linux is going to have a new "enemy", and together Apple and Microsoft are going to destroy linux.

Yeah, like Microsoft hasn't already been trying as hard as they can? And Apple hasn't already been trying to draw people to macs as agressively as they know how? All of a sudden, because Apple's switching chips, BOTH Apple and Microsoft are going to try to attract new customers where they weren't before.

It's all so silly. If these are the best argument Dvorak can dream up for the impending doom of linux, open source and free software... well, I think those of us who use and depend on linux on a daily basis can sleep well tonight, without nightmares of fear, uncertainty and doubt whether the rest of the linux world suddenly shun linux in favor of macos when we awake in the morning.

People listen to [Dvorak] because he has an amazing grasp and understanding of the computer industry. He was able to call this one years ago. Indeed, he was correct.

I can't help but wonder if this is a joke, but here goes anyway.

No, to call his grasp on the industry amazing is quite a stretch. For one thing, he wasn't really right. He predicted Apple would move to Itanium within 18 months, and that was over two years ago.

In any case, his latest prediction doesn't seem any more likely than most of his previous ones. This move by apple will have little direct effect on Linux at all. Please, people, get this through your heads: Apple is going to continue selling their computers at premium prices and not allow OS X to run on beige boxes. The only change will be a slight speed bump and maybe some slightly lower prices. Laptops will probably see the biggest benefit.

The point is, this will not change anything. People run Linux for a number of reasons, and one of them is the pricetag. Few people running Linux are thinking, "I would love to buy a Mac if only it were using the x86 architecture." They might think, "I would love to run OS X if only it would run on this computer I built," but that's not what's happening. At least not yet.

Sure, it might be a little easier to run Linux binaries on OS X x86, but it's easy enough to run your Linux programs on OS X now. The bottom line is that if you want a Mac, even after Apple has switched to Intel chips you'll have to shell out for Apple hardware and a largely proprietary OS.

And because I forgot to address Dvorak's real argument (should have previewed!), here's a little more:

If he thinks that it will hurt Linux as OSS developers focus on the Mac platform (now that it will be running on x86), well he's still not making much sense. If writing OSS apps for Mac will suddenly be easier, well writing apps that are cross-platform between Linux and Mac will be easier too.

We'll still have plenty of Linux users, and if some OSS developers decide to focus too much (in the viewpoint of Linux users) well, it's open source! The people who want that app on their platform can take the source and make it happen.

You won't have to worry about endianness issues between the OS platforms.

Also worth noting is that it's going to help Linux adoption overall as largely the same frameworks are in use for producing Linux games as MacOS X games- the endianness issues, etc. make it more difficult.

Now, it really WILL be pretty much the same thing when you make a game port for one or the other- it's just a recompile away... I like that.

Elsewhere they have said, of course, they're not going to allow Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware. So it seems that if you want to dual-boot Mac OS X and Windows, you'll have to buy a Mac. (Or wait for the inevitible hack.)

This doesn't mean they will run a standard BIOS. Surely they will not. But it looks an awful lot like they want their solution to be an Intel showboat.

Also, given the fact that we have Apple on record saying that they will do nothing to stop people from running Windows on their new macs, I think that they're going to stake their Different-ness more on the speed and quality of their engineering.